Australia news live: new vaccine booking website hit by technical problems; PNG’s Covid-19 crisis

Twofold. I expect and would hope to get the cooperation out of Europe for this. We’ve all said that we need to get vaccines where they’re needed.

This is not Australia seeking to do this for our own direct benefit, although we’ve contracted them and you would expect them to be supplied.

We’re not factoring additional supplies into the vaccination program that Professor Murphy and I outlined to you on Sunday. So this would enable us to direct supplies into Papua New Guinea and other parts of the Pacific if needed.

Those vaccines and their deployment would therefore, I think, be following through on the very public statements that have been made in the European Union about their commitment to ensure there is no vaccine protectionism and that vaccines do go to those most in need and that’s why we’re putting that forward.

And on the question of diverting from Australian supplies, those supplies wouldn’t be, but we have already, as I outlined on Sunday, indicated that we would be doing that.

There was a supply of our own produced vaccines that were already factored into the distribution in the weeks ahead and that will continue.

So – and I don’t think Australians have a problem with that. I think when we’re talking about our own home, which PNG is part of, our own family, our Pacific neighbours, I think Australians understand that that is one of our responsibilities and as an advanced nation that has had such incredible success in managing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, I think they would be generous in spirit.

I mean … We all know the Kokoda story*. They were there for us. We will be there for them.